The Sokal Affair did put the dialogue between philosophy of science and practicing scientists into an uneasy position. Latour, Guilemin and Schally all deserve respect as acclaimed academics in their own fields. Scientists benefit greatly from philosophy, and, philosophy benefits from science. Would your paper be pointing out the flaws in Latour's work as well as the flaws in the work of Guilemin and Schally by today's standards of endocrinology? This paper sounds interesting and I wish you the best.

 thanks Tommy, I have found out that Sokal indeed is very much to the point with his views, and in the work Laboratory Life there are much flaws, due to the fact that the authors did not understand a thing from endocrinology...

I think you need to start from a different position.  Latour is reporting and analyzing his ethnographic experience of the laboratory, which is different necessarily from the way the scientist doing work in a laboratory experiences and then again different from what they imagine and report they are doing.  Science studies has tried to make these difference visible.  It is not that 'the science is wrong'.  It is that scientists aren't seeing the elements that are right, usually because you imagine you are doing things differently than you actually are.  This is not a problem, it is just the way that ethnographic work sometimes happens.  If you have specific criticisms feel free to point them out, but they've likely been dealt with in the literature. As for Sokal, he is what he is, I've dealt with his misconstruals in the past, and mostly what I think he  has a misunderstanding of the variety of science, its descriptions, and its criticisms.  

I think you need to start from a different position.  Latour is reporting and analyzing his ethnographic experience of the laboratory, which is different necessarily from the way the scientist doing work in a laboratory experiences and then again different from what they imagine and report they are doing.  Science studies has tried to make these difference visible.  It is not that 'the science is wrong'.  It is that scientists aren't seeing the elements that are right, usually because you imagine you are doing things differently than you actually are.  This is not a problem, it is just the way that ethnographic work sometimes happens.  If you have specific criticisms feel free to point them out, but they've likely been dealt with in the literature. As for Sokal, he is what he is, I've dealt with his misconstruals in the past, and mostly what I think he  has a misunderstanding of the variety of science, its descriptions, and its criticisms.  

Thanks Jeremy, we might have an interesting discussion here. I have read Lab Life and found it amazing irritating. First Latour has not the slightest know how in the field and comparing endocrinologists to tribesmen and referring to them as 'so called scientists' with scriptures and mythology is very very not gentlemen like. Secondly he has no clue about scientific progress in the laboratory and does not know why endocrinologists speak of Factors and Hormones, he sees tribal wars between Schally and Guillemin based on such differentiation. Thirdly he misses quite some important external sociological factors, such as Merck, Ciba, Takeda, American Home etc. And finally Latour mistakes subjective interpretations of facts for the facts themselves. Who cares whether a lay person sees TRH and thinks it is white powder....the compound works also in such a lay person....Sokal I fond quite lucid in his criticism, Latour creates a convoluted world based on prejudices....

He isn't comparing them to 'tribesman' but trying to explain the relevance of the method.  Actually he knows quite about how laboratories work, he is just not describing it how you understand it.  The tensions between what he describes and what you see is one of the ways one generates knowledge in reflexive ethnographies.  One reason he avoids the corporate issues in that book is because he was breaking away from one laboratory in france and moving into another.  Sokal is only lucid if you don't give latour any charity and try to work into his methods and standpoint, if you do give him charity and build the best position, Sokal is sort of talking at a fantasy.  That is one of the issues of the science wars... People keep reacting to how they imagine the other people  instead of actually trying to dig in and find what they are actually saying.    I do think that Latour could have addressed the non-science studies audience better in his book, but academic writing tends to be toward a more narrow audience.  This causes many issues in interpretation.

Dear Jan and Jeremy,

In these few posts the real challenge of this field has been identified...even the basics of the discussion already indebt to all parties mentioned. That is, whether Latour or Sokal have got things right or not, discussions of the social and societal aspects of the enterprise we call science are in their debt. For example, my reading is that Latour left himself very vulnerable to such attacks from science, but that he had willingly made a straw man of himself with respect to science in order to bring attention to the inherent aspects of scientific enterprise that humanities can help with...to help liberate the thinker, the creative, to liberate the intellectual involved with scientific endeavours from bounds that they may not have even realised were holding them back, predetermining outcomes, creating farcical pseudopolitical biases etc. The scientists that read him this way are usually grateful enough to forgive any perceived errors of fact that may be evident in such an honest approach to science...perceived errors that they may not easily forgive themselves or another scientist for making...

But the same goes for social sciences. For example, if a endocrinologist attempts to critique a social scientist on the basis of the implication of perceived errors...is not the resultant discussion no longer within the field of endocrinology, and so as social science does not that addition to the STS discussion count as an ethnographic case study critique of a field that the endocrinologist abides in, has learnt to trust...trust that is expressed as truth in their identification of errors of fact? Ideas that they should care about...any resultant critique simply has the ontological value of stating "I am an Endocrinologist...not a social scientist"...but little epistemological value, sorry Jan.

I argue that the potential for a useful contemporary discussion would benefit most from the assistance of an STS and philosophy of science scholar interested in revisiting this case study...more than another endocrinologist intent on trying to set alight the very straw man that Latour made of himself for their own benefit. Jan do you agree? If not why not?

So, in short, I like what you have both come up with...and would like to read more. Please find some way to trust each other, then I can only imagine good things will come from this discussion.

Kind regards

Tom

 Dear Tom and Jeremy,

It would be quite fun if we could discuss the Latour LL in a somewhat disciplined way.

I have also all the material present based on the 'construction' of other scientific facts, such as the 'construction' of palmitoylethanolamide. This is quite a different story, and Latour selected one of the hottest topics, based on a battlefield between Schally and Guillemin, not exactly the best context for his analyses of how a scientific fact is constructed one would say. 

To discuss the propositions of Latour in a systematical way is not easy, because the book is very chaotic.

I came across the book just couple of months ago, while browsing in the university library of philosophy in Amsterdam, because I am very much interested in the flaws in postmodern philosophy as presented by Lyotard, and colleagues.

 I read the book, extremely interesting, but was quite provoked by the many misunderstandings of Latour within the field of endocrinology, and his negative style...'people who call themselves scientists', etc. I will outline one little issue:

The authors outline ‘the key-mythology of the tribe’ in a very remarkable way, demonstrating the first fundamental misconception in LL. In LL we can read: ‘In its simplest version, the mythology goes as follows: After World War II it was realised that nerve cells could also secrete hormones and that there is no nerve connection between brain and pituitary to bridge the gap between the central nervous system and the hormonal system. ‘ (LL p.55)

This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of Latour and Woolger in defining the central ‘mythodology of the endocrinologists’ at that time. Every endocrinologist spots directly the flaw in their description: hormones are not transported via nerve connections, but via the blood. This is one essential criterium and characteristic of a hormone. Where Latour and Woolger state: ‘ there is no nerve connection between brain and pituitary to bridge the gap between the central nervous system and the hormonal system…’ every endocrinologist already in the 40s would say: that is no part of our ‘mythology’, hormones of the hypothalamus (the nervous system) are not in need for such nerve connections, as there is an elaborate blood vessel system in place which is able to transport trophic factors from the hypothalamus to the hypophysis. The father of endocrinology, Hans Selye, tutor of Guillemin, already pointed out in the textbook of endocrinology (1948) that the hormones produced in the hypothalamus can reach the pituitary gland directly via the pituitary portal vein system. (Selye, 1948: 206).

If you two want, we can set up a private study group and start reading the book close...I am working on a paper in this field and also looking for co-authors..so who knows where we end.... best regards, Jan

PS the emergence of a scientific fact is a very hot topic in my opinion!

Actually I find the book to be well ordered in general, btw have you read Fleck?  http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3615917.html  Many scientists find his presentation to be similar.  To me it seems you are worried about the idea of a myth and mythology, which you can worry about.  We are all doing mythopoetics at all times, whether you are are doing science or not.  The non-myths inform the myths as much as the myths inform the non-myths.  They are the stories we tell.  What you are showing is one set of stories, which are in conflict to another set of stories and you wish to prioritize one over the other, which is fine.  However, prioritizing the Selyes story over the one that Latour is reporting from his ethnography in the lab is sort of like saying the person who created the history has greater access to the facts than the person who was told about the history... That is going to true, but what you are missing is that Latour isn't dealing with the person who created the facts, what he is describing is the stories he learned in the lab, as the people in the lab share them.  So of you have a problem with the facts, what you are having a problem with is the underinformed nature of research going on in your field.  The difference between the 'facts' and the mythologizing is precisely what Latour is trying to get you to see.  You tell stories in your labs which aren't the 'true history' nor are they even much more than myths.  Some people do better than others, that is true, but no one does it perfectly as imagined within the norms of science.  If you read  Fleck, it should become much more clear as to what Latour is doing.  If i were you, i wouldn't try to dismantle Latour with your current critique because I think you'll quickly find that it won't go very far.  There are solid critiques of this book that have been published, the book is quite old, no one that has taken your critique has been published as far as I know.  There is likely a reason for that.

I have read Fleck and his interpreter 20 years ago and it was an eye opener. Indeed there are Denk Stills and Denk Kollectives. Actually I know his interpreter Thomas Schnelle quite good!

But I find Latour much more irritating. Especially as he takes the subjective interpretations of people of a fact in emergence (TRF) as proof that such facts are constructed only. There is something quite wrong with his thinking, it is either convoluted, or it is banal. At the end all these subjective ideas of what the 'fact' can be for person a, b, or c is totally trivial. What only counts is whether the fact solidifies as a fact and can still stand after scrutiny. 

He also bring in his book forth a lot of nebulous arguments and starts explicating his point of views only in chapter 5 which is also quite irritating. 

At the end: what do we gain with such a subjective relativistic view on nature and our interpretation? It does not help a thing! It only confuses the matter. 

In the Netherlands professor Buytendijk tried to construck an antropological physiology in the 1960s. Based on le corps sujet of Merleau-Ponty. I read his work for years, because I wanted to grasp the essence. But I never did and never this subjective physiology materialized. 

I understand the launching point of Deleuze, Latour and all the French Sorbonists, they wanted to get under ths skin of capitalistic science....but this is an unacceptable agenda if one is to construct science.....

It isn't unacceptable at all.  Many scientists work well within latourian frameworks or similar epistemological frames.  Latour, you might think is relativist or subjectivist, he isn't.  That is very clear from his works.  The relativism that is present is only that of the story or narratives existing in frames with others.  You might want to look at the second half of his book pasteurization in france before you label him.  What we gain from presenting complete stories and competing stories is access to what may have actually happened, rejection of whiggish science history, or history of the winners as it is sometimes called.  Instead what we have with Latour is a story of how some things became facts....  You don't have to accept the story; but you can't dismiss it on the basis that you've been trying to dismiss it either, because both arguments that you've put forth so far  are either based on your preference for a certain construction of reality, which is fine, but it is just your and you intellectual communities' preference and the other one is based on a misinterpretation of his project.  I think you have every right to be irritated with the book, it is anti-axiological for you, but you also have to try to do justice to the book before you take it's intellectual work to task.   It might be that you cannot allow it to have justice, but that would pretty much demonstrate that Latour is correct.  

It isn't unacceptable at all.  Many scientists work well within latourian frameworks or similar epistemological frames.  Latour, you might think is relativist or subjectivist, he isn't.  That is very clear from his works.  The relativism that is present is only that of the story or narratives existing in frames with others.  You might want to look at the second half of his book pasteurization in france before you label him.  What we gain from presenting complete stories and competing stories is access to what may have actually happened, rejection of whiggish science history, or history of the winners as it is sometimes called.  Instead what we have with Latour is a story of how some things became facts....  You don't have to accept the story; but you can't dismiss it on the basis that you've been trying to dismiss it either, because both arguments that you've put forth so far  are either based on your preference for a certain construction of reality, which is fine, but it is just your and you intellectual communities' preference and the other one is based on a misinterpretation of his project.  I think you have every right to be irritated with the book, it is anti-axiological for you, but you also have to try to do justice to the book before you take it's intellectual work to task.   It might be that you cannot allow it to have justice, but that would pretty much demonstrate that Latour is correct.  My suggestion is to stop being upset about his terms and start trying to figure out why he chose them.  

HAHA, I am really not upset, but intrigued, that is why I started this string. And happy there is some resonance. I am going on vacation with only Laboratory Life and will chew on it. Meantime, please enlighten me: what kind of value is Latour's philosophy adding to science. Does it help me working on new therapies in chronic pain? Should I learn something from it. Does it have any use, apart from brain-masturbation? If I may be so bold to ask....What is your idea of its contribution to mankind and science.....and progress....After reading it again and again on my holiday I will re-enter the discussion....

Actually yes, it has been used in chronic pain, or at least a variant of his work has.  Remember the book is quite old and has had quite a bit of work done with it and around it. Have a great holiday!

Jeremy, thanks, I will look at secondary sources around LL, on PubMed I did not find 1 reference to it, meaning that endocrinologists seem quite unaware of the book and the ideas for far I can see. I will look into the use of TRH in chronic pain, quite interesting!